A Day in the Life of a Student

Instructor Elizabeth Ito recently shared with me this article from the blog of Grant Wiggins, co-author of Understanding By Design (my favorite curriculum design framework, by the way). In this post, Wiggins shares the account of a high school teacher who spent two days shadowing students and documenting her experience.

The account begins “I have made a terrible mistake. I waited fourteen years to do something that I should have done my first year of teaching: shadow a student for a day”. She goes on to describe the experiences that led to her three key takeaways:

Students sit all day, and sitting is exhausting.

High School students are sitting passively and listening during approximately 90% of their classes.

You feel a little bit like a nuisance all day long.

Although she is describing the experience of high school students, I think there is wisdom to be gained from her account. At the very least, it made me wonder what a day in the life of my students looks like, and how I might change things if I had a chance to walk in their shoes for a bit.

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A blog where the Center for Creative Instruction & Technology gets together with the faculty of Delaware Technical Community College and the education community at large to start conversations about best practices in teaching and learning.

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